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With gripping yet measured words, Jim Steinle — whose daughter was recently slain in San Francisco by an unlawful immigrant released under the city’s rules — urged Congress to quickly pass new reforms.

“While Steinle was careful to acknowledge that the nation’s immigration laws were complicated, he made it clear that his family wants to see legislation ‘to take these undocumented immigrant felons off our streets for good,” Politico reported.

“Unfortunately, due to disjointed laws and basic incompetence on many levels, the U.S. has suffered a self-inflicted wound in the murder of our daughter by the hand of a person that should have never been on the streets in this country. We would be proud to see Kate’s name associated with some of this new legislation,” he said.

Steinle wasn’t alone on Capitol Hill. According to the Associated Press, he “testified alongside several other relatives of people allegedly killed by immigrants living in the country illegally.” As their testimony drew swift headlines, members of Congress hastened to show their responsiveness to the brewing controversy. “Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle offered bills to crack down on the hundreds of ‘sanctuary’ communities like San Francisco and Santa Clara County that have openly defied federal immigration enforcement, while officials in those communities vowed more cooperation,” the San Jose Mercury News noted.

Bipartisan reactions

Not every player involved in the debate over illegal immigration shifted toward a more hawkish stance, however. Activists, predictably, urged caution. In a letter to members of Congress obtained by Politico, a coalition of groups including the National Immigration Law Center and United We Dream warned against sweeping changes to the current patchwork regime.

“Good policies are made over time, by examining our shared values and opinions, and by working toward equality and justice for all people. They are not made based on a single, tragic incident or by taking the actions of one individual to justify a policy that criminalizes an entire community,” they wrote.

Some free-market groups issued warnings of their own, discouraging lawmakers from buying in to rhetoric that presents unlawful immigrants as especially prone to break other laws. A new report from the Immigration Policy Center, for instance, which compared crime statistics to rates of unauthorized immigration, drew favorable notice in a Wall Street Journal editorial by Manhattan Institute scholar Jason Riley.

Between 1990 and 2013, Riley noted, although the population of illegal immigrants “more than tripled” to over 11 million, “FBI data indicate that the violent crime rate declined 48%,” according to the study — a figure “which included falling rates of aggravated assault, robbery, rape, and murder. Likewise, the property crime rate fell 41%, including declining rates of motor vehicle theft, larceny/robbery, and burglary.”

In addition to his five deportations, Lopez-Sanchez had racked up seven felony convictions since 1991, according to the Washington Post. “San Francisco authorities released him from custody in April after drug charges against him were dropped, despite an urgent request from the Department of Homeland Security that he be deported a sixth time to his native Mexico,” the Post reported.

Laying blame squarely at the feet of the city, federal officials have helped return California to the center of the immigration debate roiling the U.S. amidst the early stages of a presidential election season.

Municipal crisis

Caught flat-footed, city officials have scrambled to respond to the ballooning criticism. Donald Trump, who has made immigration enforcement a divisive wedge issue defining his maverick run for the presidency, recently seized upon the shooting as evidence justifying his proposed crackdown. City officials emphasized that their actions were in accordance with municipal law, as the Los Angeles Times noted:

“San Francisco’s ordinance made Sanchez ineligible for a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement hold because he did not have ‘a violent felony conviction within the last seven years, or a probable cause for holding issued by a magistrate or judge on a current violent felony,’ said Freya Horne, an attorney for the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department. ‘Nothing in his background showed anything like that.'”

Lopez-Sanchez fell under the purview of a 2013 law adopted by San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors. “Since then,” added the Times, “dozens of cities and counties across the country have stopped complying with immigration “detainer” requests after a federal judge ruled that an Oregon county violated one woman’s 4th Amendment rights by holding her for immigration authorities without probable cause.”

Lopez-Sanchez has now been charged by city prosecutors in connection with Steinle’s killing, according to Fox News.

Election-year politics

Surprisingly, Lopez-Sanchez himself has weighed in on the immigration debate. Interviewed in jail by KGO-TV, he revealed that “he chose to return repeatedly to San Francisco […] solely because he felt protected from deportation,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Horserace watchers, the Chronicle noted, have speculated that the controversy could become a “Willie Horton moment” in the 2016 election cycle — a reference to then-presidential candidate George H.W. Bush’s opportunity to score points against rival Michael Dukakis, who had supported a weekend furlough program as governor of Massachusetts that allowed a convict to committed a string of violent felonies.

But this time around, the field of contenders for the GOP nomination has split on immigration, with some candidates implying support for Trump’s stance and others remaining opposed.

Across California, some Republicans have quickly voiced their disgust with Democrats’ lenient attitude on immigration. “There has also been harsh criticism at the state level from conservatives such as Tea Party favorite and former GOP assemblyman and gubernatorial candidate Tim Donnelly, who is now a talk show host,” the Chronicle continued. “He called on state Democrats to take direct responsibility for immigration policies that he charged are ‘putting the public’s safety at risk.'”

Democrats, meanwhile, have not responded in kind. State Attorney General Kamala Harris, who rose from San Francisco district attorney to her party’s favorite to replace outgoing U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, ventured that “our policy should not be informed by our collective outrage about one man’s conduct,” as ABC News reported. “Many other San Francisco politicians stayed quiet as mourners held a late morning vigil at Pier 14 on the downtown waterfront[.]”